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Women's health problems in Pakistan |
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| To address the problem of Malnutrition, the following question was
formulated: Question Will a Programme of " health education and facilities of affordable health supplement" at Maqbool Clinic, Dhoke Kala Khan organized Dr Manzoor, Mrs. Raheela Manzoor, Miss Sobia, Mr. Mumtaz (male nurse in the clinic), Miss Shabana & Miss Sajida (locak volunteers) and other supporting persons/organizations for one year for child-bearing women of Dhoke Kala Khan reduce the incidence of anaemia and malnutrition by 20%? To address the very common problem of anaemia and malnutrition in women of childbearing age of Shamsabad, we joined the Vitalet Project for Better Health. The activity formally started on 28-11-00. I took training about nutrition supplements on 03-10-00 from a very resourceful NGO named Social Marketing Pakistan. It mainly consists of health education and facilities of affordable health supplements, which comprise multi-vitamins, and essential micro and macro minerals product whose market price is an 80-Pakistani rupee for one-month course. We get the supply of this supplement from the NGO on a regular basis at the rate of eight rupee per pack and provide our every registered malnourished patient at rate of ten rupees for one month for the maximum of four months. To generate more awareness about the importance of a balanced diet, we arranged a general meeting of 35 women with a nutrition expert from an NGO in our clinic on 24-03-01 and thereafter-another special meeting of 30 pregnant/lactating women with the same expert on 21-05-01 in our clinic. |
During these meetings, the women showed a lot of interest in the topic and we intend to keep up these activities in future. During the year 2001,a total of 360 women and 5 men were provided this supplement. Out of 360, some more than two dozen women were identified as grossly malnourished. These needed more attention and extra effort. We planned an initial three week diet programme for each of these which generally consisted of : - Half a litre of milk daily at the clinic for 21-days - Ten multi-vitamin injections/or infusions at the clinic on alternate days - High energy candies daily at the clinic for 21-days - High energy biscuits daily at the clinic for 21-days Every patient attended our clinic very regularly and at the end of the three week course, each was provided with this health supplement free of charge for four subsequent months. All costs of milk, injections, infusions, disposable syringes, candies, biscuits and the health tablets was borne by the clinic. In addition, we provided about three hundred and fifty rupees each to two patients for laboratory investigations. One of our patients was a tailor and was unable to operate her hand driven machine. We provided her with a motor and all accessories to convert her machine to a motorised sewing machine. Menstrual disorders A number of patients attend our clinic with menstrual problems. They can be divided into two main groups. |
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